The eatery always quieted down around two or three in the afternoon. During those lull hours, Wei Zhi Yuan, having cleared every plate, had little to do. So one afternoon, when he innocently asked the owner if he could borrow his mobile phone to play Snake, the boss handed it over without a second thought.
While Wei Chain spent the week mapping the city grid and studying the municipal waste disposal routes, Wei Zhi Yuan played endless rounds of Snake -- and discreetly dispatched several coded messages to Fatty San.
The first text was terse:
Third Brother, help. Do not reply. When received, dial Brother's phone at nine tonight, let it ring once, and hang up. -- Little Yuan.
The second provided the city and district name, followed by strict instructions:
Do not reply. Do not come looking for us. Find your own lodging. Once you arrive in town, call Brother's phone, let it ring twice, and hang up.
On the fourth day, Wei Chain’s phone buzzed twice before cutting off.
Following Wei Chain’s contingency plan, Wei Zhi Yuan sent the third message:
Secure a large dog. Once you have it, call Brother's phone, let it ring three times, and hang up.
On the morning of the second bout, Wei Chain readied himself for the canvas. Rising before dawn while Wei Zhi Yuan was still fast asleep, he took a charcoal pencil and carefully drew a small tortoise on the back of the sleeping boy's hand.
Having pored over the secondhand mathematics textbook page to page, Wei Chain had copied dozens of margin turtles onto sticky notes; by now, his rendering captured nearly the full, eccentric essence of the original owner's artwork.
Finished, Wei Chain pulled on his jacket and slipped out into the dawn like a phantom.
Meanwhile, on the western outskirts of the city, Fatty San had spent a grueling day and night scouring the wasteland with a massive hound on a tight leash.
A pickup truck rattled down the dirt road, its headlights cutting through the gloom. Fatty San scrambled behind a mound of rubble, yanking the leash to drag the dog down into the ditch, holding his breath until the taillights disappeared.
The hound panted, its long pink tongue lolling out. Catching sight of Fatty San’s trembling, sweat-slicked face, it affectionately licked his cheek.
Only after the engine faded did Fatty San swipe his face in disgust, snarling under his breath, "Motherfucker, that dog just ate shit!"
The hound saw no hygiene violation in the act, wagging its tail with an enthusiastic "Woof!"
Fatty San stared at the beast with mounting despair. The dog was tall, sleek, and handsome, but its intellect seemed shockingly defective. "Baby, we’ve burned an entire day out here. If we don't find this lead, that little bastard Wei Chain is going to end up in a pine box."
The hound -- let’s just call him Dog Joy -- lunged forward in high spirits, barking another cheerful "Woof!" as if gleefully agreeing: Let that bastard croak!
"Tell me about it," Fatty San grumbled, wiping his brow. "I'd love to see him in hell too -- he's nothing but trouble on two legs. Dragging me all the way across the country to hunt for corpses in the boondocks... Your Third Brother is clearly built for slapstick comedy, but this ungrateful brat keeps casting me in horror films!"
Dog Joy suddenly jammed his front paws into the dirt, freezing in place.
Fatty San’s nerves snapped taut. "What is it? Did you catch the scent?"
Dog Joy merely hoisted his hind leg and sprayed the nearest tree trunk.
......
Looking down from the ridge where the hound had pulled him, Fatty San spotted the municipal incinerator compound below. The foul, choking stench hung thick in the stagnant air. How Dog Joy -- with olfactory senses thousands of times sharper than a human's -- could remain so persistently cheerful in this cesspool was beyond comprehension.
Squinting through the haze, Fatty San noticed something abnormal: several oversized, off-color waste drums sat segregated from the municipal refuse piles. The pickup truck that had just passed was parked alongside the processing yard. A few men jumped down from the flatbed and hauled the drums up with practiced ease.
Those loaders were definitely not municipal sanitary workers. In this backwater facility, standard workers were older, weary laborers; few young men would endure such squalor for meager wages. Yet these men were young, broad-shouldered, and muscular, lifting the massive, heavy drums without breaking a sweat.
Within minutes, the truck rumbled back toward the scrubland.
Fatty San dropped into a crouch, unfolding his paper map. "That doesn't add up," he whispered to Dog Joy. "The map says there's nothing out there -- just abandoned wasteland."
Dog Joy ignored the map, yanking fiercely on the leash.
"Fine, lead the way!"
Keeping low, Fatty San tracked the fresh tire treads through the dust, relying on the hound's nose as the eastern sky began to gray. Before long, he stumbled upon a cluster of unpermitted brick workshops -- the kind used for illegal back-alley scrap smelting. The pickup truck had already departed, but several large drums stood lined up outside the corrugated shed. The lids were tossed aside, and one drum, knocked onto its side, lay completely empty.
Fatty San poked his head out, cautiously peering into the overturned barrel.
The interior was pristine. Real municipal trash cans were coated in grease and grime; an industrial waste barrel was never this clean unless it had carried something else entirely.
A cold, sinking certainty told Fatty San he had found the right place.
Only then did he notice Dog Joy's sudden transformation.
The hound's eyes went wide, the hackles along its spine standing straight up. Baring its sharp fangs toward the dark workshop shed, its paws scratched the dirt in a frantic posture torn between violent attack and sheer panic -- it had caught a scent that terrified it to the marrow.
That morning, an unusual customer walked into the Sichuan eatery where Wei Zhi Yuan worked.
The moment the front doors unlocked, the man sauntered in, ordered a bowl of spicy noodles, and sat there nursing it without touching a bite -- clearly killing time.
The owner and his wife were visibly unsettled; rarely did anyone order fiery, greasy noodles during the awkward gap between breakfast and lunch. The customer wore a tight tank top that revealed the creeping edges of dark ink across his collarbone, his dyed yellow hair radiating the unmistakable stench of a street thug.
Wei Zhi Yuan carried Wei Chain’s mobile phone in his pocket, muted, waiting for Fatty San’s signal.
If the site was located, Fatty San would let his phone ring once. When the job was done, he would let it ring a second time.
The morning dial had already registered, but the second signal was long overdue. A knot of anxiety twisted in the boy's chest.
Just as he glanced down at the screen, the yellow-haired patron pushed his chair back and crept soundlessly toward the counter.
At the arena, Wei Chain had just concluded his second bout.
The instant he stepped onto the canvas, his instincts had flared. For a seasoned street fighter like Wei Chain, a single glance at an opponent's stance was enough to gauge the lethal threat they posed. Under the tiered rules, a second-round opponent should have been significantly more dangerous, yet this man lacked the ruthless aggression of his first bout.
Wei Chain dismantled him with clinical efficiency, taking him down virtually unscathed.
The surrounding spectators erupted in disappointed boos -- to an untrained gambler, Wei Chain’s opponent had appeared massive, imposing, and thoroughly intimidating.
Yet only experienced fighters understood that the man's physique was pure, non-functional mass -- like a bodybuilder whose swollen muscles severely hampered striking velocity, useful for little more than absorbing basic punches.
Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Wei Chain prepared to head back to the locker room.
As he cleared the ropes, Chao Lao-9 hurried over, breathless. Grabbing Wei Chain’s forearm, he dragged him into a recessed corner, looking him over with exaggerated concern before letting out a loud, theatrical sigh of relief. "Alas, little brother! Thank the heavens you're in one piece!"
Wei Chain knew the trap was closing. Keeping his face completely blank, he played the naive novice. "Huh? What happened?"
Chao Lao-9 slapped his thigh in mock fury. "These useless bastards working the rosters... they botched the matching! Your opponent wasn't a preliminary brawler at all -- he was a middle-tier heavyweight! That brute outweighed you by double! Ninth Brother was scared half to death you'd get torn apart out there..."
Wei Chain sneered inwardly, yet arranged his features into a stunned, bewildered mask.
As if suddenly remembering business, Chao Lao-9 unzipped his leather clutch, pulling out a thick, banded stack of crisp hundred-yuan notes. The bundle was over two inches thick; a single glance told Wei Chain it was easily over twenty thousand yuan.
"Here -- your appearance fee and winner's bonus, bumped to the middle-tier payout. Ten thousand each. Plus, your Ninth Brother tossed in an extra five thousand from my own pocket. I let you down by not monitoring the roster closely, nearly putting you in the hospital."
Wei Chain feigned initial hesitation before accepting the cash with the eager clumsiness expected of a greedy young brawler.
Pocketing the bundle, Chao Lao-9 patted his shoulder with warm, predatory affection. "A bright future ahead of you, kid! Go on, get changed."
Wei Chain had mentally simulated dozens of scenarios. Receiving twenty-five thousand yuan in cold cash -- a fortune he had never laid eyes on in his life -- naturally made his pulse spike, but his iron discipline reasserted control within seconds.
He walked away from the canvas at an intentionally sluggish pace. Glancing back over his shoulder, he caught Chao Lao-9 watching his retreat with a smug, self-satisfied smirk.
Bring in a decorative soft target, trick the fighter into believing he toppled a middle-tier beast, and use an absurd cash purse to inflate his ego so he blindly volunteers for the third bout?
No. Real fighters recognized the difference between genuine killers and hollow muscle; they would write this victory off as a stroke of dumb luck. How many men with twenty-five thousand yuan in their pockets would choose to step back into a meat grinder?
Addicts, desperate debtors, or men with terminally ill kin might take that gamble, but they wouldn't sign a three-bout contract in the first place.
For the average low-level brawler, twenty-five thousand yuan far exceeded expectations. Scarcely any would possess the reckless stupidity to risk their necks again. Handing out that much cash without a guarantee was throwing meat to a stray dog -- Chao Lao-9 was far too cunning for such amateurism.
Wei Chain’s mind ran at maximum velocity, razor-sharp and ice-cold.
Suddenly, his boots froze on the concrete.
Chao Lao-9’s parting phrase echoed in his ears: "Go on, get changed."
The locker room!
From opening night, Wei Chain had noticed the bizarre spatial layout of the arena.
Logically, adjacent tiers should have been clustered together for spectator convenience -- and the upper divisions were indeed arranged that way. But the lower tiers were split across opposite ends of the compound. The preliminary ring sat near the main entrance, while the secondary ring had been placed at the furthest, darkest corner of the hall.
To return to the locker room from the second ring, a fighter was forced to navigate a narrow perimeter corridor -- a tight, single-file passage flanked by concrete walls, plunged in near-total darkness due to uninstalled wiring.
While fighters entered through the perimeter to give paying patrons an unobstructed view, venue rules strictly mandated that exiting fighters use this rear passage to avoid congesting the VIP floor.
In other words, that pitch-black, suffocating corridor was the sole egress point from the secondary ring.
And that dark tunnel lay straight ahead of Wei Chain.
Greed... and raw, bloodthirsty rage.
In a flash of blinding clarity, the mechanics of Chao Lao-9’s trap snapped into focus.
Picture a destitute brawler, flush with the euphoria of an unexpected victory, clutching a fortune he has never dreamed of possessing, walking into this dark, narrow corridor ...
What happens when a coordinated ambush strikes from the shadows?
What happens when the attackers not only fracture his bones, but violently rip that fortune from his grip?
An unprovoked assault in the dark inflicts profound psychological trauma. To a brawler fresh off the canvas, his adrenaline surging and blood burning hot, an ambush wouldn't breed fear -- it would ignite blind, murderous fury.
That violent, unhinged rage would instantly annihilate all rational restraint.
And then there was the stolen cash.
Missing out on money was one thing; having a fortune placed in your hands only to be violently robbed was an insult that drove desperate men completely insane.
Brutal. Primal. And terrifyingly effective.
Cold sweat drenched Wei Chain’s palms.
Right then, a low, gravelly voice murmured from the shadows directly behind him:
"Why stopped?"
Out in the western wasteland, Fatty San felt as though his heart were about to rupture from pure terror.
To this day, Fatty San had no idea what mess Wei Chain and Wei Zhi Yuan had gotten themselves into. He only knew the two brats had vanished without a word, leaving Old Mrs. Song pacing the flat in a frantic panic. The old woman had stopped hurling insults, cornering him daily like a wailing ghost to demand answers.
Fatty San was equally frantic; the trauma of Pocky’s sudden death still cast a heavy shadow over his soul.
Then came the coded text message from an unknown southern number.
Fatty San had bought a ticket from a scalper and rushed down south, his nerves frayed -- especially after receiving instructions to locate a corpse disposal site.
Reading the word corpse on a phone screen was one thing; confronting the visceral reality was enough to shatter a man's sanity.
Fatty San and Dog Joy slipped into the illegal workshop. Along the way, sensing the palpable dread rolling off the human beside him, the hound didn't utter a single sound. The transport crew had already cleared out, leaving only a lone middle-aged caretaker to watch the yard.
The caretaker was holed up inside a dim shack fitted with a makeshift altar, shivering as he frantically burned incense and kowtowed before a brass Buddha statue.
Avoiding the piles of scrap metal in the courtyard, Fatty San and Dog Joy crept toward the rear sheds housing the industrial smelting vats.
Stepping across the threshold was enough to make a man lose control of his bladder.
Lined up within the shed were deep industrial tanks filled with water. Floating near the surface were human corpses -- eyes rolled white, jaws locked agape. The outermost body was still stiff from recent death, while the inner tanks, exposed to the humid southern heat, had begun to emit a thick, sickening stench of rot...
The vats weren't full yet -- clearly awaiting a full batch before being loaded into the scrap incinerators for collective disposal.
Fatty San collapsed flat onto his backside on the dirt floor, while Dog Joy let out a strangled "Woof" of pure, unadulterated terror.